Tucson by Night, Build up/transition game V20 - V5

[SarcasticJazzHands]

Well, it was quite a politicking session. Lets see where we stand now.

It began with Madigan bringing Francois to Selena's Night Clinic. Francois was stating that he felt alright, other than a bit hungry, and made no mention of the blood sweat or tears he was experiencing. (The virus has a mild mind control to keep you from seeing your own symptoms, but you are able to see anyone else's. Francois had shown up at Gemma's new Elysium, and only Madigan and Gemma were there at the time, they do not know that Xenia the Nosferatu was also there. Selena contacted Ethel, the Malkavian nurse who is a germaphobe, to help at the Night Clinic and help tend to Francois. She did state they were taking usual medical precautions of gloves, face cover and scrubs. She had him drink some stored blood and expend blood to see how it reacted, and all seemed normal. He is currently at day 3 of the condition, requiring a second dot of blood to rise in the evening. It is at that time that a runner from the Prince came to fetch them to the council meeting about the Anarch Revolt.

Renee summoned Ragman and Ethan in first to speak with them first and give them the situation. Both of them expressed concern over it, with Ragman wishing to speak with the Anarchs and know the reason for the grievances. The full council was convened and the situation discussed. Prince Hector of Yuma was brought in first and explained his situation. Then Jeremy MacNeil was brought it and explained how things unfolded. He requested from them a copy of the Gadsden Accords, wanting to use them as a frame work for governance of this new territory he had. He never directly said one way or another if the Anarchs were coming to Tucson, but made no comments about stopping the surge.

The council came to the idea of sending/directing the Anarchs to Phoenix. That city represented many of the issues the Anarchs had with treatment in California. Selena contacted Nemo in Phoenix to have him discreetly gauge reaction to an Anarch uprising. Tucson feels stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have/had Archons in the new Territory between the US and Mexico, they have Phoenix to the north and now the Anarchs out west.

The Primogen were tasked with discussing the situation with their clans that night and gathering the following night, but presenting it in a way to not bring about their very own Anarch uprising. Most of the clans were in agreement, they were loyal to the City above the Camarilla, but many made a call for their to be decisiveness on picking a side, no playing one side against the other hoping the stay out of it or on top.

Tommy is still not in line with his Grand Sire. He feels that they made stupid mistakes leading up to the rebellion, and have no plan for afterwards. I equate this to him looking at it from outside, as he does understand that the Brujah might very well fall in with the Anarchs should they bring the fight to Tucson's door. Fortunately there is about 200+ miles of Werewolf territory between Tucson and California.

Benjamin did bring up an interested point to Ethan, and talked about the possibility of sending the Anarchs to Phoenix, and then Ben and/or Ethan going north and helping to quell the disturbance and retake the territory for the Camarilla, putting themselves in a potion to be prince of Phoenix. Ethan is not actually opposed to this idea, just knows it has to be played carefully.

As best can be seen, no clear decision has been made, but the plan in general is to foment discord in Phoenix how ever possible. Tucson will also be in contact with Karl Schrekt and giving him the information they have that the Tremere of Phoenix may not all be loyal to the Camarilla, and may have strong ties tot he Sabbat. It came to that because should Prince Birch in Phoenix come down to "quell an anarch uprising in Tucson," their claim might have less weight with them being potential Sabbat vampires themselves. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

As for the disease, here is where that stands.

It is transmissible by air from Vampires to human and Vampires to Vampires. Right now, Francois is on day 4 of infection. Any human that may have been near him during that time has a chance of infection, as well as any vampire that was near him on day 3. This include Selena, Gemma, Madigan, Renee, Ethel, Xenia. They all had to make Stamina rolls at a difficulty 6 to see if they were infected. Only Ethel failed her roll. Any vampire that they were in proximity to had to make a Stamina roll at difficulty 4 to see if they were infected. Only Danah failed that roll, she was in close proximity to Selena when they spoke of how the Menagerie wanted to procced in light of the Revolt. If all proximity exposures are not exposed again a second day, and pass their second stamina check, they are immune to the disease by contact or air. The problem will come in the humans that the vampires were exposed to, like the one that came to the Night Clinic to fetch Selena and Madigan. The vampires with Herds or that feed from the same batch of humans will be at major risk of infection, with their resistance difficulties increasing greatly. Will see how this plays out over the next few nights, and if word spreads about this or the revolt, and how the Sabbat will capitalize on it.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

Sorry about the hiatus. Game, real life and the holidays have been a bugger.

We've had three game sessions since my last update, so I will work on getting everyone caught up and try not to miss anything.

The quick and dirty update to bring things current is as follows:

Half of Tucson's vampires are infected with the disease. It is both a physical and meta-physical, transmissible by auras as well as through normal cold/flu vectors.

Karl Shrekt is in town. He arrived the day before the city was attacked.

Half of the Coven is dead or missing. Ethel was killed in an assault on the Coven House. Mila, Xenia and Illianna were kidnapped. Illianna was rescued after her getaway vehicle was found. She was guarded by ghouls, one Anarch vampire and a werewolf. Ragman and Tommy were able to kill the werewolf.

Xenia was kill when her get away vehicle went to the airport to escape and was shot down by Idamae, She did not know Xenia was in the plane at the time.

Mila's get away truck went to Marana, a small township suburb north of Tucson, and flew out from there to Phoenix.

At the time of the assault, Siobhan was at Selena's haven working on a cure, Danah was at the Night Clinic and Gemma was at her Elysium.

While the Coven was attacked, the city lost power and phones and South Tucson was experiencing rioting and looting. Tommy, in his infinite wisdom, thought that he would need a boost to go and deal with the riots, and proceeded to drain the werewolf dry. He then spent much of the remainder of the night chasing Prince Renee around town while being Summoned. He finally burned through the blood and awoke an hour or so before dawn at his ghoul javalina farm, having destroyed and devoured his stock.

The one anarch vampire was captured, but it seems that he was dominated, as he does not remember anything after going to sleep 3 days earlier.

Tucson's vampires had declared open season on Phoenix, by decree of Prince Renee, (Partly due to the rating 8 vinculum she has with Mila). Nemo will be contacted soon about helping to start an uprising, and anarchs may be called in or directed there as well to remove the threat of the Tremere there.

Selena is on the verge of curing the curse/disease, because of the aid of Karl, who is probably going to take any credit for this, if he even lets it out that this happened.

I'll get a more blow by blow run down up soon.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

Back once again. boy oh boy...

So, in the aftermath of the attack on the coven, most of the vampires were in the parking lot of the Night Clinic location that Selena had. This Clinic is located in association with the Medical college, which Selena has worked heavily with. Instead of the University of Arizona in Tucson, it is St. Augustine's University, same campus and general focus, but with the residual influence of Selena.

Anyhow, they had tracked one get a way vehicle to the night clinic, and knew that there were two others out there. Tommy took it upon himself, with how hard the combat with the werewolf had been, to juice up by drinking the werewolf. He proceeded to drain the werewolf, the one of the horses that had drawn the cart which had the blood for the clinic in it. vampires scattered. Renee drove north and used Presence to common Tommy to her to keep the general population safe. While running, she discovered that Pablo, her racetrack owning Toreador friend, was killed. She made a note to deal with that later while running from Tommy to keep him on the move. Fortunately this being the wee hours of the morning in early January, the streets themselves were relatively uncrowded.

Madigan and Selena were able to track down one get away vehicle to the Marana municipal airport, a township just north of Tucson. It was later discovered that same night, a small plane arrived in phoenix, gassed up, and flew out going to Los Angeles.

The following day, Selena met with Karl and he gave her the missing piece of the puzzle for the treatment. Basically the disease exists in a person's aura, and then they body contracts it. if you clear one without the other, then you get re-infected. Karl suggested aerosolizing the treatment, so that it saturates the aura and then is taken in by the body, cleansing both. They worked up a sample and tested in on Francois, and he was remarkable better within half an hour. Karl took a inoculation and then left the city, taking the notes with him. He did leave a copy for Selena.

As people took stock after the attack, the death toll was tallied. The coven lost Mila (Siobhan's childe), Esther (the ananasi masquerading as a Tremere), and Xenia (killed in shoot out at the airport). The Toreador also lost

Pablo, and it isn't yet determined when/how he was killed.

Once the disease cure was administered, no vampires had died as a result of that, Francois had been infected a total of 10 days, but with the Night Clinic set up, he was able to be kept on blood. The others were as well, with nearly half the city's kindred infected at the height, but that drastically over taxed the Clinic's blood supply. Will was able to bring in some cattle blood to help shore things up, and Selena got the church to initiate a blood drive, and portion of that would end of going to replenish vampire stocks.

After Tommy's massive screw up with the werewolf blood, he was made to personally apologies to every Ventrue in town. This has caused a bit of grumbling within the Brujah, but most realize how bad it could have been.

Next update will cover the happenings in Phoenix.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

Alright, the Phoenix update.

Nemo was already established in Phoenix as an inside mole. He reported in that there were several of the Anarchs in town, and things seemed to be moving in that direction, that something would be happening. Selena and the Prince discussed options and approached Zelda and Drudge about a plan. If Tucson kindred could infiltrate the Tremere Chantry using the cover of the Anarch fight, then evidence could be obtained against the phoenix Tremere about the suspected ties to the Tremere Antitribu and the Sabbat. Zelda and Drudge could go to Phoenix and become bound to the Phoenix Chantry and help the infiltration. In exchange, Zelda (who was already considered freed), Drudge and any Phoenix gargoyles would be allowed to have a say in their destinies in Tucson, be it to become part of the Tucson Chantry, or to be represented by the Menagerie Primogen.

Tommy and Will were tasked with sending a strike team to Phoenix to help will the Chantry invasion. They took along the Brujah Quintin and Vargr, as well as the Gangrel Mortimer and Raquel. They traveled north seperately from the Gargoyles and ended up meeting a Gangrel sentry on the outskirts of town. The Gangrel was sympathetic to the Ananrches and contacted his primogen, Cassius, to arrange a meeting between the Tucson kindred and the Anarchs.

Benjamin Also discussed with Ethan about the fate of Phoenix. He felt the dsire to go to Phoenix and help stabilize the city in the aftermath of the Anarchs and keep the territory part of the Camarilla. He also expressed concern with Ethan being Seneschal and Benjamin establishing himself in Phoenix that some might have concerns over the Ventrue becoming too powerhungry in the region, so hinted that Ethan step back and do what he does best, be Sheriff.

The Delegation met with the Anarchs and Cassius. Cassius has himself and the Brujah Primogen on the side of the Anarchs. He also has Sasha Birch, descendant and childe of Sebastian Birch. Before she was embraced, she became Cassius's blood bound ghoul behind the Prince's back. When he went to embrace her and discovered it, he punsihed her by keeping her out of positions of power and by not even teaching her THaumaturgy. She is only a few years embraced, but has poured everything she can into Auspex.

It was discussed that the attack was going to begin that night. Prince Sebastian was convening a council meeting to discuss the situation in Tucson as told by the Gargoyles, that something was ravaging the city, killing Kindred and the Gargoyles fled when the Tremere were eliminated. While the meeting was going on, the citizens were broken into teams, and paired with one of the Anarchs. They would collectively hit the havens of the major players in town, which were mostly Tremere. The Primogen council was spared from direct assault with the idea that they would be in agreement with the Anarchs once the Tremere fell. The Tucson delegation would be the group to assault the Tremere chantry.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

At the council meeting.

Things were going as usual, the Tremere would taking the lead, paying the Primogen little lip service. about half an hour into the meeting, it was interupted when an underling came in, reporting that there was a disturbance at the Sheriff's haven and then the phones went dead. The Tremere sheriff went off to investigate. THe meeting continued until a pair of gunshots were heard outside, Cassius, who was the former Sheriff, was tasked with investigating it. He saw two of his Gangrel and an Anarch outside, grinned and let them in. Chaos ensued. Sebastian was wounded, but not before causing Cassius to frenzy, to which the Anarch shot him at near point blank with a dragon's breath round. The two gangrel did the same thing to the Anarch in retaliation. Using the distraction, the Toreador Primogen grabbed the Prince and they fled to the chantry.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

Long overdue update.

Back at the Chantry in Phoenix. Zelda the gargoyle was sent in as a distraction and force to help get the Anarchs and Tucsonans into the Chantry. The chantry was breach and eventually a secret library was found. Within the library there was a iron archway with blood vines growing on it. one of Sebastian's advisors was down there, seemingly conducting experiments on the archway. While he is being subdued, Sebastian and the Toreador Primogen arrive. Tommy aggravated punches through the toreador and into Sebastian, and the tussle continues. Soon the archway activates, and reveals a shimmery black pool after igniting in dark fire, burning away the blood vines and melting the dirt the archway was contained in to obsidian glass.

From the portal emerges Felix Andrade, the former prince of Phoenix, Sebastian's sire, whom everyone had see die back in the attach on Phoenix in 1912. He seemed alert, but a little subdued, but did fire off dark thaumaturgical balefire. Nemo was part of the group that infiltrated the chantry, and he started grabbing books and manuscripts to take back to Selena. During the fight with Felix, Sebastian and his childe Sasha escaped. Felix was taken down by Tommy and Will and their aggravated damage. at this point, no other tremere from the Chantry are left alive, and the only casualty on the side of the Anarchs and Tucson was Mortimer the Gangrel. Will was nearly dead form Balefire and Tommy had some wounds from it as well. The Gargoyles told the group that their service to the Phoenix chantry could be severed and them freed from their bonds if the Chantry grimoire was removed from the grounds. The book was mystically bound to the chantry, and could not be taken out of the door or by windows, so it was thrown into the portal, and the portal closed afterwards. They made chase after Sebastian and Sasha. When they caught up with them, Tommy attempted to kill Sebastian, but Vargr stopped him, saying there were answered needed, and that the Prince would need to know them. Nemo stayed at the chantry, and then loaded several crates of important looking things, along with the inactive archway.

A few days later, back in Tucson. Benjamin escorted Tommy, Will, Sebastian and Sasha to see Renee, along with Beth, the new elected Malkavian prince of Phoenix. Sebastian and Sasha were handed over to Tucsonas a gesture of good will and cooperation from Phoenix. Benjamin said that he would be remaining in Phoenix, to help spread the idea of the Marches across the state, and acting as Magistrate of central Arizona, while Francois would remain Magistrate of Southern Arizona. Sasha was given over to Siobhan in order to allow her to sever the blood bond she had with the Phoenix Gangrel Primogen Cassius, who did survive the dragon's breath rounds and retained his position. It was negotiated with Sebastian that he could submit to being bound to Renee, Ethan or Ragman and be allowed to live. He chose Ragman, and Ragman uses his Obfuscate on Sebastian to make him appear as someone else. Sebastian is "killed" in a public execution.

Embrace rights are awarded to most clans, some to repopulate lost people, others are rewards for their clan's service in the recent months. We then stepped into downtime.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

Right near the start of downtime, a group of Ventrue presented themselves to Renee, and said their cousin, a werewolf, had been tracked and found to have been killed in Tucson. It was determined that the werewolf that Tommy drained was that werewolf. The Dunidae family set up shop in a fledgling retirement community south of Tucson named Green Valley. through some spying and confrontation, it is revealed that they are actually Giovanni, of the Dunsirn family, they have a cousin who is of the Fianna werewolves that came with them. She joins the local werewolves near Green Valley. Renee, in hopes to draw the Giovanni into city politics, and keep an eye on their activities grants them a position of Primogen on the council, to several members dismay and dislike.

The coterie work on consolidating their own power bases within the city. Will claims a meat processing plant, Ethan establishes a gated community in the foot hills north of town. Selena works on establishing an occult studies department at the St Agustine's University. Renee works on following the way of Las Vegas/Nevada and establishing legalize and regulated prostitution and gambling within the state. She ropes the Giovanni into helping to fund one of the casinos as well. Tommy sets up in one of the abadond mines just outside of town.

In 1962, Tommy hosts a centennial embracing party. He invites most everyone in the city and some of the Brujah from around the area. Word gets out, and some of the Brujah turn it into a Rave. A group of the higher ups in the AFS come, including Tommy's grandsire MacNeil, Smiling Jack, and others. Tommy's sire Butch comes in from New Orleans. Theo Bell also arrives, just a few short years into his Archonship. Fortunately the party goes off without too much of a hitch, and the brujah disperse peacefully.

We are running through some more downtime, taking us to around 1969, when there will be the return of some old friends gone missing, some major interactions planned with the werewolves, and some potential shake ups within the primogen council.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

Very long overdue update.

We recently discovered a new campaign tracking site, Kanka.io to which we moved our game tracking to. https://kanka.io/en-US/campaign/17770/campaign

Quick and dirty of 1960s up time:
A previously unknown Mage node was attacked. Outwardly it looked like a gas explosion, but this was what happened when Samuel Haight stole the staff (Not completely canon for location, but was a way to bring it in). The home was left abandoned due to lack of Quintence as well as a breaking/weakening of the local lay lines. This went so far as to cause issues for the Changelings in the area as well. One of them was found by Alonso and accidently drained by him, causing him to go on a Chimerstry fueled bender that nearly broke the Masquerade. He was subdued and forced to be blood bound to the Ethan the Seneschal to help keep him better in line. A few years alter, the D'Argentum family moved in, a Father and two young children. They are a kinfolk family that were historically used as Werewolf hunters, having purposefully given themselves silver poisoning to help resist and fight werewolves.

Sebastian Birch has taken on the name Bas Bjorkman, and with Ragman's help has been keeping a very low profile as a Nosferatu. He is "blood bond" to Ragman so that he can work to figure out what his Sire had planned with the portal and to atone for the problems he caused while under the influence of his sire. Bas works closely with Selena in regards to the portal and perhaps using it to verify a theory Selena has that her grand sire Sergio is not dead, but actually stuck in the Abyss. THey are able to get th portal to open, and Selena gets pulled to it, but nothing seems to happen, more on that later.

Three kindred are found trying to infiltrate the city, but it turns out they are Mila, WORM who had been kidnapped by the Sabbat, and Xenia, who is supposed to have been dead. Through confrontation, Xenia is revealed to be a fleshcrafter Tzimisce and there is another obfuscated Sabbat vampire. During the fight, the real Xenia arrives and helps to subdue the sabbat vampires, claiming to have fallen into torpor after the plane exploded and she crawled into a hole and slept. Mila and WORM are deprogramed as much as possible, Ethan attempting to undo what ever conditioning was done to them while in captivity. It seems to have been successful, and they are reunited with their sires, Siobhan and Ragman respectivly. Xenia is put through a batery of test and it is concluded that she is infact the original Xenia and allowed to reunite with the Coven.

The Coterie discover a large tunnel dug through one of the hillsides, and when they investigate it, it seems to be something made by a giant worm of some form. They are concerned that it is some form of flescrafteed monster, but it seems to be directed towards Phoenix, not Tucson. They do find a large geode like cavern that the creature ran into and veered off from. THere is a bright light pooring out from a source within, light blinding to the vampires. THey flee the area when they hear the sounds of an approaching pack of werewolves. It turns out this is a hidden caern that the werewolves then take over, under the ground of a location called Sentinel Hill, also known as A Mountain for the giant concrete A that was put on it some years back. A non-agreesion and non interfeerance treaty is implemented to keep Vampires out of the area of Sentinel Hill and allow the Werewolves to have command of the area surrounding it.

Another new face on the scene is that of Rupert Concord, who reaches out to Rene, the Giovanni, the Tanzih brothers as well as one of the werewolves. He seems to think that Rene is involved in illicit or illegal activities, and offers to create and manage a Casino in the burgeoning Las Vegas style Strip that is growing south of town. He appears to be entirely human, has several other Concordia hotels across the country and all avenues of investigation turn up nothing nefarious about him, in fact turn up nothing at all.

[SarcasticJazzHands]

The following takes place during the downtime between the 1960s and 1991.

Madigan approaches Selena about concerns with Mary Alice and her self control. She given a measure of more power by being granted new domain north of the city, and recruits a few vampires to help reside there. This seems to mollify her for now. She uses the opportunity to create a large water park as well as recruit a profession sports team to the area.

Will take a trip way down south to south America, to trace his lineage, and learns that he is a descendant of Miclantecuhtli. He eventually makes it to his temple and speaks with one of Mictan's grand childer who watches over him. Her learns that Will's sire, Anu, was in and around Tucson for a specific purpose, possibly to watch over or guard something.

Selena asks Nemo's childe, Felicite, to infiltrate the Coven, to keep an eye on Siobhan and Selena and whole group.

Ethan establishes the Hill, a protected community for anyone, but nominally the Highclans more take advantage of it.

Selena holds one of her Symposiums on the nature of Vampiric existence, which draws attention from Dr Douglas Netchurch. He requests a temporary residence in the city to have a sateilte office to do some of his research and share with Selena. She agrees to that if he helps her with research on the blood plague.

Selena is also becoming more detached and distance from the other vampire within the city. Some take notice of it, some do not. She discovers a way to sythethize blood, but it requires time to be processed within a human body for it to be a viable replacement for blood, either for medical uses or to sustain a vampire. She keeps this under wraps, as she doesn't like the idea of having blood farms, even thought it would help alleviate some vampiric needs.

When we resume uptime, it is the night of July 10th, 1991. There are dark things on the horizon, as tomorrow is one of the largest and longest solar eclipses.